“Well,” replied Nisha, “the Commissioner has now been kicked upstairs and will soon be taking over as Director General of Police—a nonjob if ever there was one! Rupesh was simply waiting for an opportunity to snatch the case from us. With the Commissioner going, your presence in Lara’s van on the day of her murder was the perfect excuse for him to act.”
“Be that as it may,” said Jack, “this case is no longer just another investigation for Private India. This is now personal. I have lost one of my dearest friends and we are not going to give up on finding the perpetrator, irrespective of whether we’re officially on the case or not.”
“Rupesh wants us to submit all our findings and reports to him in the next few hours,” Nisha reminded them.
“And so we shall,” interjected Santosh. “Give him whatever he wants, but make sure that you have copies and backups of everything so that our own investigation can continue—with or without Rupesh’s blessing.”
“What about the evidence collected from Principal Elina Xavier’s murder scene?” asked Mubeen.
“Expedite your analysis so that you can return the physical evidence to Rupesh. As usual, retain copies of your findings,” replied Santosh, nudging Jack to get up.
He wanted their boss to return to his hotel and get some rest. Jack was staying at the Taj Mahal Hotel and Santosh’s apartment was close by, less than a ten-minute walk from the Private India office in Colaba.
The streets wore a festive look because most of Mumbai was celebrating Navratri—the Festival of Nine Nights—an extravaganza to honor the power of the Hindu mother goddess Durga. All along their route, small kiosks and makeshift temples had been erected and were decked out with flowers and bright electric lights.
“C’mon, I’ll show you what Navratri celebration is all about before I drop you off at the hotel,” said Santosh, grasping Jack’s elbow to steer him into some open ground. Hundreds of young men and women had gathered there to dance the Dandiya—a form of dancing traditionally performed during the festival. Jack noticed that the men and women, each holding two short sticks in their hands, were dancing in concentric circles. On every fourth beat the sticks would clash together in order to complement the music in the background.
In one corner of the ground a huge canopy had been constructed, under which sat a massive statue of Durga. Around the statue hundreds of worshipers sang devotional songs, danced, lit earthen lamps or incense, offered flowers, and recited prayers. The expression on Durga’s face was angry. Jack was curious despite his dazed and drained condition after Lara’s death.
“Durga, despite the terrifying imagery with which she is depicted, is not a malevolent deity,” explained Santosh patiently. “For the ancient Hindu seers she was simply the goddess of time and transformation, who could help one understand the cycle of creation, life, death, and rebirth. To the uneducated, however, she was something entirely different. The Durga of medieval times was thirsty for human blood and could only be satisfied through human or animal sacrifice.”
Santosh continued to explain the characteristics of Durga to Jack as he stood transfixed before the large statue. At that moment Santosh saw something that he had been missing all along. It sent shivers down his spine.
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“WHAT’S THE MATTER, Santosh?” asked Jack, realizing suddenly that they had been standing in front of the statue for a long time. Santosh seemed to be staring fixedly at the idol’s hands.
His heart was beating wildly as he grabbed Jack’s arm like a man possessed, hurried out of the celebration grounds and hailed a cab—wildly waving it down with his walking stick. He was still waving it inside the cab, urging the driver to get a move on.
“I thought you wanted to walk,” began Jack, but Santosh ignored his boss.
“Take us to the Town Hall, and there’s an extra fifty in it for you if we’re there within five minutes … five minutes!” he instructed the cabbie. He then took out his cell phone and dialed Nisha, barking instructions. Jack was left wondering if there was some truth in the rumors that he had appointed a lunatic as his Indian bureau chief.
With its vintage parquet floors, grand spiral staircases, wrought-iron loggias, and exquisite marble
statues of forgotten city fathers, the white-colonnaded Town Hall was perhaps one of the most splendid and imposing of Mumbai’s heritage monuments. The cabbie dropped them off at the base of the stairs leading up to the magnificent building. Nisha arrived at the same time in another cab.
“Why have we come here?” she asked breathlessly, having run part of the way due to the urgency of Santosh’s summons.
“It’s not the Town Hall that we’re interested in,” he said as they began walking up the stairs. “This particular building also houses the Asiatic Society, which has a collection of close to one million books, some of them priceless antiques. We should easily find the one that I need.”
The Asiatic Library had separate sections housing different treasures. An impressive numismatic collection of over a thousand ancient coins including a rare gold mohur belonging to the most famous Mughal emperor—Akbar—was also housed in the building. Of course, the collection was not open to public view but the library was accessible to all. Santosh ignored the direction signs and headed for the reading room, the fading grandeur of which attracted many senior citizens who sat under the ancient ceiling fans poring over local newspapers.
“What are we looking for?” asked Nisha, as they entered the library and headed toward the central desk.
“Tell the chief librarian that we need a book by M. D. Jayant and Naveen Gupta,” replied Santosh. “I can’t remember the title but it’s an illustrated book that explains the nine avatars of Durga.” Nisha returned a couple of minutes later with a slip of paper on which the librarian had written the rack number where the book could be found.
Having located The Nine Durga Avatars of Hinduism, they sat down at an illuminated desk. Nisha began to read aloud the relevant passages to both men as softly as she could.
“The mother goddess—Durga—has three basic forms and each of these has three manifestations thus resulting in a total of nine avatars. Each night of the nine-day festival of Navratri is dedicated to one of the nine avatars—”
“Yes, yes, I know that,” said Santosh impatiently. “I want to know what each avatar looks like.”
Nisha quickly leafed through the book and found the chapter that described the first avatar of Durga. She was known by the name Shailputri. Turning the pages further, they saw an illustration showing what Shailputri looked like. There was a moment of hushed awe when they saw the image of the avatar holding a trident in one hand and a lotus flower in the other.
“Look at that,” said Santosh, pointing to the mount of the goddess. Nisha and Jack looked at the picture more closely. Santosh was spot on. Shailputri was shown mounted and seated on a bull. The first victim at the Marine Bay Plaza. Nisha felt her heart racing as the theory that Santosh was proposing dawned upon her.
Chapter 46